#xod jb

[princesdecentdoodles]

hi xoxo droplets tumblr

this one goes out to you

[nervouschopshoptale]

[otomes-and-tears]

it’s meeeeeeeee i’m shiloh enjoyer #3!!!! revolving him around in my brain every day like it’s a microwave 😭😭 i know you’re busy with a lot of other asks at the moment but i’m eagerly awaiting the lizzie post!! and all of your other writing ofc <33 you brighten my day :D

HELLO TO THE MYSTERIOUS SHILOH ENJOYER #3! I think we're all here now haha I'm glad you enjoy my analysis posts! NOW BUCKLE UP, BUCKAROOS! THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE LOWKEY SAD: Elizabeth is perhaps the most complex and defining relationship in Shiloh's life.

First of all, it's one of the few we see glimpses of throughout several steps in his life-- we see how he idolises her as a child, how he acts towards her when they reconnect in his teenage years and glimpses of how the different versions of him act with her in adulthood. It's likely the oldest relationship he maintains that isn't familial, and I think that's incredibly significant when we take into consideration what I believe to be one of the paradoxical cores of Shiloh's character: Connections and relationships are disposable to him, but Shiloh is only Shiloh as long as there’s someone there. He still feels lonely.

I talked a little before about Shiloh's childhood. How the social dynamics he established as a kid ended up influencing his behaviour as a teenager: He sees Lizzie as the obvious leader, since she's older and more assertive than him and MC, and follows her around and obeys her every whim because of it. Whether he genuinely likes her or not is up for debate, but I don’t think it matters to Shiloh. What she means to him is something that can far supersede any simple likes or dislikes that he might feel at that age:

She provides stability and purpose. She’s his anchor against the mean kids, the teasing, the isolation. All he has to do is stay in her favour. Lizzie is his first encounter with a power dynamic he can rely on and emulate as he grows, and therefore she becomes someone he idolises.

Shiloh doesn’t need to be honest, or even be himself, as long as he’s useful and needed. He understands social hierarchies all too well, knowing what happens to people at the bottom. It’s why he insists he isn’t “different” and loses it when Cove calls him “weird.”

He was probably one of the kids who got picked on, so he’s always scrambling to stay just above water and not sink to the bottom with the rest of the “outcasts.” MC doesn’t mean much to him, but in Lizzie’s absence, he sticks to them just as obediently, as they’re the next best thing. Cove, on the other hand, is mostly just a mild annoyance but does give Shiloh a bit of relief because, for once, he’s not the one at the bottom. And it’s not like Cove was ever going to be Lizzie’s favourite anyway.

Whenever Shiloh gets ignored, he panics and tries to wedge himself back into the conversation however he can. And as soon as Lizzie shows up again, he immediately runs back to the safety of their old dynamic.

I think that while most of him admires her at that age, there's a little part of him that resents not being like her. Not being able to be a leader and being relegated to a follower, feeling aimless when she isn't around. As a kid, he's more prone to lashing out when angered, unlike older Shiloh who acts with fake cheeriness and this strange, eery coldness when annoyed. And that's why he pulls her down with him into the water in Step 1.

If he isn't willing to voice these things because he doesn't want to rock the boat and cause issues, he expresses it more subtly.

Shiloh’s just scared—a scared little kid who figured out a way to fit in. And because that method kept working for him, through moving out of state and getting through life without Lizzie, he never really had a reason to change, even if it did a number on his very sense of self.

He got better at these tactics over time, making sure he’d always have a way to fit in, but it cost him a real personality and genuine social skills beyond the manipulation tactics he fine-tuned throughout the years. Eventually, he started taking control in small but crucial ways: He’s the one who walks away from relationships, now. Removing himself from them becomes a choice. It’s not only about leaving when people cease being useful to him but about imposing a sense of control that he felt like he lacked in childhood since he moved schools and states a few times and was likely used to being the “new kid” in different places.

He learned to hide his feelings better, so he wouldn’t blow up the way he did when he was seven. That’s why his relationship with Elizabeth—and the times he had to start fresh somewhere new—were so essential to shaping who he is: Lizzie set the standard for the kinds of relationships he’d chase, and moving around gave him fresh slates and new people to practice on.

That brings us to the serendipity moment in Our life and what we know from him in Xoxo droplets. Now, I know a lot of people haven’t actually played XOD and only have a cursory knowledge of it and the fact that a few characters from it cameo in the Our Life series! But did you know that Liz is mentioned by name in Shiloh’s route?!?

Yes! Back in 2017 we actually had Shiloh mention the events of Serendipity, which I think is a crucial scene to understand Shiloh’s character.

But before we talk about that, Let's talk Serendipity!

After Jeremy brings up “Shiloh’s famous memory” and Liz realizes he lied about not remembering her in the Step 3 prologue, Shiloh actually goes ahead and explains why he is the way he is. His explanation lines up with what we know about him from XOXO Droplets and how he acts in Step 1.

I don’t think he’s lying. Not about all of it, at least. Some of the only concrete information we have on Shiloh’s character and how he functions comes from his childhood, and I think that what he’s saying is a natural progression of that information. He only does things for his own benefit, he’s afraid of being left out and he asserts his sense of control through his relationships with others. But it’s really important to remember that Shiloh doesn’t do things without it benefiting him. While I believe in the core of what he’s saying, the fact that he’s divulging this information at all (how he’s going about it, by putting Liz and her feelings on the matter first, and framing his choices as being mistakes he made out of care for an old friend and by reiterating that they’re too good and putting himself down for pity points) instead of trying to dodge the conversation again, he’s employing a few of his known manipulation tactics: the real me strategy.

Shiloh knows that this new information is hurtful to Liz, and like in Step 1, her opinion is really the one that matters to him. He knows that there’s a limit to how much he can play dumb before they snap, and by Jeremy revealing part of his MO, there isn’t a lot he can do to smooth things over, so the least destructive path is to do exactly what Shiloh does to JB during his route in Xoxo droplets: He feeds Liz little bits of truth because he knows he’ll damage their relationship if he doesn’t. He gives her enough so she feels like she knows him better, like she’s got some new, special insight into the “real” Shiloh that nobody else has, which keeps her around. He pretends to drop his manipulative schtick because by telling her this, she has “figured him out” and there isn’t a point in trying anymore. That itself is a manipulation tactic.

But why bother? He’d be gone again by the end of the afternoon regardless of her forgiveness or not.

It comes back to what I mentioned earlier: Shiloh is the one who exerts control over his relationships. He is the one who decides when they start, and when they end, and by Liz being upset and deciding she doesn’t want to be around him, not only does he lose the control he craves, but Shiloh loses it with the person he based all of his subsequent relationships on.

In the few hours that he spent in Sunset Bird, they all fell back into their old dynamics even though it had been so long since Shiloh stepped foot in that town. He still remembers that she prefers popsicles over ice-cream sandwiches, and even though he’s better at including MC and Cove, Shiloh in a lot of ways fell back into their old routine, looking back to Liz as his leader and following into step as her sidekick. It doesn’t matter if Liz isn’t an active part of his life any longer, what would it mean to him to have those memories tainted? For that perfect template to be ruined?

But Liz stays. 

And because of that choice, we get to see the ultimate consequences of it. Shiloh isn’t a good person. As pitiful and as tragic as he might be, he simply isn’t one. And I think that can be encapsulated perfectly in how he frames his interaction with Liz to his girlfriend in Xoxo Droplets.

He glosses over what he did wrong, he casually exploits that event to garner points with his girlfriend. He ultimately doesn’t care if she takes his and Liz’s relationship the wrong way and frames it as being romantic, even if that’s far from the truth. Even with Elizabeth being miles away and already hurt by him, he still finds ways to use people and spin narratives to his advantage. 

I do believe he holds Liz in higher esteem than most (and arguments can be made that JB, the main character in XOXO droplets and his love interest, and Elizabeth share similarities in both appearance and their strong-willed, confident personalities), since she was his “idol” by his own admittance, but this is a tiny way in which he asserts his control over the situation. It doesn’t matter if Liz believes she holds the reins. If she’s older, admirable and if he still follows her around like an obedient puppy when she’s around.

By choosing to stay, she tipped the scales in his favour. He is the one in control once again, and he's able to continue his interminable cycle of holding people at arm's length while playing the part of a devoted companion.

[one12345two]

Some xoxo stuff

[sunstream7]

SHITPOST REDRAW TIMES FT OCS.

Me, My girlfriend, and the 500 dollar four foot tall cat plushie she bought because i wont cuddle with her at night.

Pretty pran-cess

nate, 'no fun' lawson

world's worst group project

putting the 'pan' in pain

nosy mfs

[werkwerkelizaaa]

JB personally gifts you one of these when you get landed in detention by Nate for the first time

[xoxo-jb-brainrot]

Idk I just..

Why pran wearing the goofy outfit!!!!!!!

(Might draw them in the goofy movie fits because I’m actually unhinged.)

[olteacup]

his parents suck, hate them

OHHH YEAH SERENATE HIM JB!!!

UR INSECURE DONT KNOW WHAT FOR UR TURNING HEADS WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH THE DO-O-OR DONT NEED MAKEUP TO COVER UP BEING THE WAY THAT YOU ARE IS ENOUGH EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM CAN SEE IT EVERYONE ELSE BUT YOUU BABY YOU LIGHT MY WORLD LIKE NO BODYELSE THE WAY THAT YOU FLIP UR HAIR HAS ME OVERWHELMED AND WHEN YOU SMILE ATT THE GROUNF IT AINT HARD TO TELL YOU DONT KN-O-W YOU DONT KNOW UR BEAUTIFUL THATS WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL

why does he look so horrified when she does anything romantic TT

kinda made me feel bad sorry everett ik you had a crush on Pran (canon)

tehehe we

i have no idea why i just realized he had a brow piercing sdhcj

fun fact pran doesnt have a blushing sprite throughout the whole game

[jeremywasriven]

mcr reference (i am autistically fixated) shitpost with bae and jb cameo

[natelawtism]

Can I say that the difference between Nate's behavior in XOBD and XOD is very interesting to me? Obviously everyone's changed. They aren't actually murderous in XOD (among other things), that's a given.

Spoiler's for Everett's route of XOBD under the cut in case anyone needs that warning

BUT! The way he treats JB in XOBD vs XOD is interesting to me. The way he behaves in general is. In XOBD it seems like he's a lot more willing to be vulnerable with people, which doesn't show up much in XOD. In XOD Nate is pretty shut-off. Of course, over the course of his relationship with JB he begins to open up, but there's never been a chance for him to go out of his way and help her like in Everett's route of XOBD.

In Everett's route he's obviously doing everything to help Everett. He's trying to get his best friend to have enough energy to wake up! But there were moments where he did show kindness and calm towards her. For example, after she murdered Pran and fed him to Everett and he still didn't wake up. Nate tries to comfort her and even says that it's okay she stay's in his dorm to watch over Everett with him!! That might not seem like a lot to most people, but for Nate? It's a LOT. Nate KILLS PEOPLE who break the rules in XOBD. A girl in the boy's dorms is very much against the rules, to the point that Nate does kick her out at some points! Nate being willing to ignore important rules to make her feel better is a big thing.

Not to mention the look on his face in this scene is very gentle. Especially gentle for Nate "I won't relax until I'm dead" Lawson. He truly does care, and considers her a friend! (which was mentioned previously in the prologue. When you run into him, he says that you're a friend and he really doesn't want you breaking the rules because he doesn't want you dead. Not just because he doesn't want people breaking the rules!)

In XOBD, Nate is definitely more open about how much he likes the mc. Of course, in XOBD all the jerks are a lottle crazy for the mc (Nate literally kills her in an ending with some "no one will ruin you again" shit), but this behavior just stuck out to me idk. It makes me happier to see a softer Nate! One who isn't constantly yelling or being exasperated, and can express care for his friends without the other jerks around riling him up.

[buried-in-autumn-leaves]

When Aurora goes to Jeremy's graduation she's not surprised at all that he avoids her. She does, however, find who she's pretty sure is Pran outside the building. After confirming it is her, she passes on the gift she brought for Jeremy onto her. Because as funny as it would be, she doesn't want to actually upset her little brother.

(Also JB and Jeremy don't break up until after graduation in this timeline, and when she sees Jeremy getting flustered over this random girl in the audience she's like who the FUCK is that and that's why she's the only group member besides Pran to know ab that side of his family.)

[princesdecentdoodles]

cant believe i never posted this

[gb-patch]

HYPOTHETICALLY if you were to ever make an xoxo remake, would we still play as JB or would you add character customization?

I'm afraid not, the only reason an XOD remake may happen is because it wouldn't require a lot of work on the script, which tends to be the most time-consuming part of our VNs. We couldn't redo the scenes from the ground up to facilitate personalty customization. There'd never be the time.

And, unfortunately, even just putting in an MC with customizable pronouns wouldn't work that well since the boys have varying gender preferences. So, we'd need to rewrite the events from the way they react to someone they might date to versions when they were with someone who'd be exclusively a friend. For example, Shiloh dates women specifically. Sadly (or happily) he wouldn't do his evil, manipulative flirting if you played as a male or non-binary MC. Every scene of his would be different for those players.

And that'd be unfair, to release a game with MC customization where the only gender who can get all the guys is female. There's a lot of queer characters in the cast but some of the boys are straight. I wouldn't want to retcon their sexualities.

Plus, JB really is her own character to me. I wouldn't feel great taking away her well-established identity either. If there was gonna be a custom MC, it couldn't be her. She'd have to be erased from the world entirely or put in as a side character, neither option is ideal.

So, for various reasons, XOD is gonna have to remain a game about the adventures of one very particular gal. While our future games will continue to be made to tell the player's story.

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[otomes-and-tears]

i am so glad there is another shiloh enjoyer and even more happier that you are an analyst of this silly little creature. do you believe shiloh has the capability of a redemption arc?

We're all Shiloh scholars! Majoring in Shilohnalysis and minoring in ophiology!

I like to believe that everyone is capable of growing, they just need to be willing to put in the effort to do it.

Habits are hard to break, and changing can be a terribly cruel thing for a normal person, and I'd likely be a million times harder for Shiloh. To be redeemed he'd need to confront not only the things he did, but the core of who he has been for literally this entire life.

During the prom date, Shiloh says that he doesn't know if a "real him" really exists. And I'm inclined to agree with him. Regardless of whether he feels any remorse or shame underneath his adorable soulless smile, manipulating and flattering is all that Shiloh knows. By the time we meet him in Our Life, he doesn't have his whole shtick polished and perfected, but that literal child is already at a point in his life where he thinks that being himself isn't worth it and that he's only ever worth anything as long as he's a sidekick, always ready to please the protagonist! It's fucked up!

He's literally seven at that point.

It's roughly the age when kids start really going to school and socialising in a space that isn't home, and this is what he resorts to do fit in. And it's not something he grows out of either!

He might be more manipulative and in more "control" when we see him in XOD. However, it's still the guy who would deliberately fall over and hurt himself if JB asked him to. Shiloh's relationships being replaceable, and him always being the one to end them doesn't erase all the humiliating things he willingly does to be able to have them in the first place. It doesn't change the fact that this all started when he was still early in his development and that all those absolutely crucial socialization milestones happened with this, with purely transactional relationships as a foundational block.

It would require so much work to unpack and unlearn all of it. And it would take being vulnerable and honest with himself, which Shiloh might not even be able to do easily. Mending his relationships will also be harder-- because for Shiloh, at the same time he likely did mislead and hurt a lot of people, for many others he just... Gave them exactly what they craved. A yes man, someone to shower them with praise and flattery. It's what he knows what to do. He just doesn't want to be lonely.

But then again, he's a difficult character to read and understand, and I think it's part of the reason why so many people hate him with a fiery passion, but I've always seen him as this deeply tragic figure-- which would likely make me a prime source of his manipulation, were he real.

[one12345two]

xoxo droplets but it‘s neko atsume